


Five Times Bucky Barnes Didn't Have a Bed (and one time he did)

by neversaydie



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Bottom Bucky, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Dehumanization, Drunk Sex, M/M, Objectification, Pre-War, Protective Steve Rogers, Sharing a Bed, Wall Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-29
Updated: 2014-09-29
Packaged: 2018-02-19 07:02:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2379218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neversaydie/pseuds/neversaydie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky Barnes has slept in a lot of places, most of them not so comfortable.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Times Bucky Barnes Didn't Have a Bed (and one time he did)

**Five times Bucky Barnes didn't have a bed.**

 

_Brooklyn, 1926_

He's a scrappy little thing, that's what his mother says. His mother calls him Jimmy until some relative gives her the idea that _Becky and Bucky_ is cute, and it sticks. Their apartment is small, cramped, and his father doesn't stay with them except at weekends because he has to work on the other side of town.

One winter they fall behind with payments on some loan or another. Bucky's too young to know the details. All he knows is, one day he comes home from school and there are big guys hauling their furniture out onto the street while his mother cries.

Bucky's the man of the house when his father isn't there, that's what his dad said, and he tries to get the men to stop but they just shove him aside. He ends up sitting on the floor in what had been his bedroom, hugging his little sister to try and get her to stop crying because every time she does it sets his mother off again. He's still young enough that his mother crying scares him.

He's the one who goes down the hall and knocks on the door of the kid he's seen at school, swallowing his pride and shame to ask if they could borrow some blankets until they figure something out. Sarah Rogers is as blonde and thin as her son, and she must share his sense of decency too because she point-blank refuses to let them sleep on the floor.

Becky and his mother share the kid (Steve)'s bed, and Bucky and Steve bunk up on the couch. Or at least they would if they could both fit. They're both scrappy little things, but Steve's bony knees and elbows hurt too much to sleep top to tail, pressing into all the fleshy parts that hurt, and it's not like Bucky can exactly cuddle up with the guy. He takes one of the cushions and retreats to the floor, hating his life.

Sometime in between the third and fourth time Bucky considers whether or not he looks old enough to quit school and work down at the docks, Steve rolls over and tells him he thinks he's brave to take care of his mom and sister like this. He smiles at Bucky in the dark, and it's the only bright thing he's seen all day.

The floor doesn't seem so bad after that.

 

_Brooklyn, 1938_

"Buck?"

"The hell are you doing outta bed?" Bucky's on his feet in moments, shaking off his blanket and grabbing Steve where he's swaying in the doorframe of the living room like he's about to fall down. At least it looks like he's not sweating anymore, the fever must have broken.

"C'mon, lay down before you fall down." Steve doesn't resist his friend dragging him back to bed, because he's pretty sure that's a distinct possibility. "You're dumb as a rock sometimes, y'know that?"

"Where'd your bed go?" Steve asks, voice thick through his raw throat and wheezing lungs. "Buck? Why're you sleeping on the floor?"

He'd been in and out of consciousness for days, had totally slept through Bucky and the guy who bought the bed hauling the damn thing out of the room, out of the building, and onto the cart. He hadn't got much for it, but it was enough to cover the antibiotics the doctor promised would clear Steve's lungs up before the winter really set in.

Two days later and Steve's on his feet, however briefly. Bucky figures that means it was a good deal.

"Lost it in a card game." He shrugs, tucking the blankets back around his friend's bony shoulders and taking extra care not to leave any gaps for cold air to get into. "I'll figure something out tomorrow."

"Don't sleep on the floor, s'cold." Steve murmurs, already slipping back into sleep. "Bunk up with me tonight. I promise your virtue's safe."

"As if you'd know what to do with my damn virtue, pal." Bucky snipes back, and Steve lets out a snuffly laugh.

Steve's bed is more comfortable than the floor, Bucky has to admit. And waking up snuggled up to his best friend's back isn't the worst thing in the world. Somehow he doesn't get around to sorting out his own bed for a while.

Steve doesn't seem to mind so much.

 

_France, 1944_

"Seriously, again?" Sergeant Barnes kicks the empty bedframe with a scowl. "What the fuck is it with Nazis and burning anything comfortable?"

"Psychological warfare. Make us all so sick of sleeping on the floor we give up and go home." Dum Dum drops his pack on the uneven floorboards with a creak. "At least they had the decency to leave us a gift."

Bucky can't help but laugh at the battered skin mag Dum Dum's holding up, retrieved from beside the burned-out bed. There's part of him that wishes he could just be upfront about the fact that the pinup girls and their soft curves don't do a thing for him (not like broad shoulders and big hands and stubble), but he's not stupid. Don't ask, don't tell.

"Just our luck the pages'll be stuck together." Bucky rolls his eyes and Dum Dum lets the tattered magazine fall back onto the floor with a snort.

The Hydra guys have done a pretty good job of leaving the house barely habitable, but the Commandos have had worse. They trade stories about that worse while they heat up tins of beans in the fireplace, just to put things in perspective. Foxholes and trenches, mud and rocks and what's left of other guys. Cells in the Hydra base and the examination table.

Bucky gets quiet after that. The boys leave him be, because they've become familiar with the thousand-yard stare that clouds Sarge's eyes when they get a moment when they're not moving. Steve is the only one who tries to prod him into joining in as the topic moves to happier things, but Bucky remains stoic and lost in his head.

The boys don't say anything when Steve drags Bucky upstairs after they make it through the bottle of whiskey Morita had dug out of some house on the way here. They know how things are between Cap and Sarge, they're also smart enough to keep their ears and mouths closed about it.

"Make me feel something, Stevie. M'so fuckin' cold."

Bucky isn't quite drunk, but he's tipsy enough that there's a weariness to his words that he rarely lets show. Steve pins him against the wall and kisses him so hard their teeth clack together. Bucky lets out a shuddery breath through his nose as if to say _finally_.

They fuck fast, rough and on the edge of painful just how Bucky needs it. He rakes his nails down Steve's back and leaves welts that used to last for days but now will heal by morning thanks to the serum. They used to have to be so gentle, back when Steve's heart pounded like a caged bird and he nearly passed out when he came.

Bucky doesn't think he could handle gentle anymore.

He bites and scratches and he _means_ it. He begs and writhes until Steve is fucking him so hard that even that cold place that's been buried deep inside him since Hydra is warm. When he comes hard enough for his vision to white out, the war might as well not exist outside their broken window.

He falls asleep with splinters in his skin and his lips bitten bruised from keeping quiet the sounds Steve wrung out of him. He'll be sore in the morning, and it'll keep him sane until they get another moment of rare privacy to do this.

Steve's chest is a good pillow, even if there's no bed under them. For the first time this month, Bucky sleeps without nightmares.

 

_Moscow, 1958_

The Asset does not require a place to sleep.

He's rarely out of cryo long enough to actually rest, but when he attempts it the effects are unpredictable. He's erratic, his conditioning imperfect during sleep. He wakes up with foreign names on his lips, screaming in English and slaughtering anyone who attempts to contain him.

There is one agent, a skinny undercover boy barely out of his teens. The Asset pauses over him with fists dripping blood into his blond hair and weeps. He doesn't resist when they pull him off the boy.

He lies on the floor of his holding cell when they tell him to. He doesn't move or close his eyes again until his handlers come to collect him.

They trade him to the Americans two weeks later. Their cryo tube is upright, he doesn't even get to lie down.

 

_Seattle, 1995_

"It's fuckin' creepy when he just stands there."

"So don't look at him."

"I'm trying to fuckin' sleep and he's looming over me, Doyle. It's creeping me out."

"God, will both of you shut the fuck up?" Rumlow breaks into the whispered argument with a growl.

The rest of STRIKE are asleep around them, field packs for pillows and sleeping bags over their legs only so their arms are free in case they need to move in a hurry. Rollins glares across at Rumlow as he sits up to look at the Asset. He's standing in the corner where they left him, his only concession to tiredness is that he's leaning against the wall with his arms folded.

"I'm telling you, I can't fuckin' sleep with a ghost in the corner." Rollins grumbles irritably. Doyle opens his mouth to say something back, but Rumlow cuts him off.

"You're such a pussy." He rolls his eyes and beckons to the Asset, who snaps to attention like he was caught sleeping in class. "Hey, big guy. C'mere."

"What the fuck are you doing?" Rollins hisses, obvious fear in his voice. Rumlow just smirks, because there's nothing he likes better than fucking with Rollins in their downtime on assignment.

The Asset walks over obediently, stopping dead a good foot away from Rumlow's prone body.

"Lie down."

"Brock, seriously…"

Rumlow ignores the warning and the Asset simply does what he's told. He lies down on the concrete, nothing under his head and prone, stiff like he's in a coffin. His eyes are open and fixed on the ceiling, staring at nothing because he hasn't been instructed to look.

With a smirk, Rumlow shuffles around so he's lying at a right angle to the Asset. There's nothing but confidence in his movements as he pushes his pack aside and rests his head on the Asset's stomach. Rollins and Doyle are both gaping at him like he's crazy, but the Asset doesn't even twitch.

"Not a bad pillow." Rumlow smirks. The other guys break into laughter.

The Asset tries to breathe shallowly so he doesn't disturb his handler. He doesn't sleep.

 

 

**And one time he did.**

 

_New York, 2016_

"Buck?"

It takes him a second, because he's not used to answering to a name yet. He looks up to see the blond man standing in the doorway of the (his, apparently) bedroom, and for a moment it's like he's seeing two people at once. It's like the film has developed a double exposure, a skinny kid standing right where big, broad Steve Rogers is.

Has this happened before?

"Why are you sleeping on the floor?"

"I lost it in a card game. The bed." The words spill out automatically, rusty like he's not sure what he's parroting. Steve looks like he wants to cry, his face creasing in that horrible near-smile that Bucky's used to seeing now. "Or… I think I sold it?"

"I fucking knew you lied about that." Steve's face twists up into a little bit more of a smile than a grimace, and Bucky feels relief. Steve steps over and holds out his hand, careful to show Bucky that his palm is empty. "C'mon. You can't sleep down there all night."

"I've had worse." Slowly, he takes the offered hand and lets Steve help pull him off the floor. To be honest, it had never really occurred to him to sleep in the bed. It looks too soft, too clean. He doesn't want to sully it with his tainted body. He's sure he leaves a stain on whatever he touches.

"I know. But you don't have to have worse anymore." For some reason, Steve isn't letting go of his hand even though he's standing. "C'mon, pal. I've got a better idea."

Bucky lets himself be led across the hall. He's still kind of freaked out by the Avengers Tower, the voices that come out of the ceiling and the assassins that pop out of the walls now and again. He knows he's under surveillance, no matter how much Steve tries to reassure him that he's safe. Maybe that's why he'd been more comfortable hiding under the bed than sleeping in it.

"This is your bedroom."

He states the obvious like a child, feeling stupid for blurting it out as soon as they enter the room. But Steve just nods and lets go of his hand, giving him the choice to leave if he wants to. He looks nervous, and Bucky cocks his head to the side curiously. He doesn't think there are any threats in this room that Captain America should be concerned about.

"We used to do this when we were kids. And… a lot after we were kids." Steve explains, sitting down gingerly on the edge of the bed. "You don't have to sleep here if you don't want to, I just thought it might be kinda… less scary than sleeping on your own. I figured you could bunk up with me if you wanted."

There's another echo itching at the back of Bucky's mind, worming its way to the surface the way all his recovered memories have, one by one. He remembers shades of nightmares, waking up panting and retching (in dilapidated houses, burned out, Europe) with a warm hand on his back and firm words shushing him and bringing him back to the present.

"Are you gonna touch me?" He asks, considering his options. Steve has read his file, at least enough of it that the question makes some of the colour drain from his face.

"No, no." He waves his hands emphatically. "Not if you don't want me to. I promise you're safe with me."

"My… virtue is safe?" Bucky says it like a question, because he's not sure if he's remembering it right. The accent is wrong and the cadence isn't like he remembers, but he's fairly sure of the words.

Steve looks at him with wonder, a smile spreading over his face.  

"Your virtue's safe with me, jerk."

"You wouldn't know what to do with my virtue." He's a little more confident about this one, and he must be right because Steve's smile beams so wide it lights up the whole room. "Punk."

So it kind of ends up that Bucky doesn't have a bed after all. Not of his own, at least. He doesn't try and sleep alone after that night, and when he wakes up from nightmares there are warm hands and gentle words again. He starts to feel like a person again, and he's pretty sure the sleeping part doesn't have much to do with it.

Bucky still doesn't have his own bed, and he's okay with that.

Steve doesn't seem to mind sharing.


End file.
